My little ragamuffins

Since the weather has been nice and the kids school is close, we've been walking to pick them up in the afternoon. It's part of my effort not to spend the evening in a semi-comatose state after being up since 3:00 am. Most days it works pretty well. We were walking home from school on Tuesday we were walking home from school and I noticed that not only did Becca have holes in the knees of her pants but the soles of her shoes were flapping on the ground. I had two thoughts. One was that the said articles of clothing were going into the trash when we got home and the other was, did Jeremy look at her at all when she got dressed that morning? Maybe it happened at school. Anyway, Becca wasn't too happy about getting rid of her clothes. She sat down in the middle of the sidewalk after I told her they were going in the trash and started to cry. Becca never stays upset for long though.

Sunday I was cleaning out my nightstand and found a pair of Sariah's capri pants. I don' t know why I put them in there but I noticed green marker stains on the back pockets, so I threw them in my garbage can. Monday night, I went into my room and noticed that somehow they made it back onto my bed. I think Sariah found them when she was dumping pencil shavings and rescued them. So back in the trash they went. By the way, the trash in my room has basically scrapbook trash in it, nothing gross. Yesterday when we were picking them up from school her Sariah's capri pants looked oddly familiar. Somehow they'd made it out of the trash again. And they had a hole in the knee. She claims that she found them in her drawer. When I gave her a hard time about the hole in the knee and the stain on the rear she started to cry. Her teacher, bless her heart said "It's ok Sariah, I didn't notice the marker and people pay to have holes in their clothes." I'm beginning to wonder what their teachers must think, sending my children to school in clothes that are falling apart.

We've been potty-training JD the past couple weeks. We went with Jeremy's mom's advice and let him run around the house commando. We've only had a couple of stinky mishaps. Unfortunately they were in his carpeted bedroom. That was last week. This week he has been doing very well, he told me yesterday he's a big boy. I've only lost my temper at him twice, so I'm proud of myself. I remember screaming at Becca when we were trying to potty train her. He seems to be doing well so I'm hoping that by the time we run out of the current box of diapers that he'll be good to go. They ought to last a while since we are only using them at night and sometimes at naptime.

Popular Puppy

We took Kilo on a walk with the kids tonight. We are trying to train her to be better on a leash, as in we want to take her for a walk and not her take us for a walk. I'm always amazed at how much people admire her. Our neighbor was out working on his car and commented that she was a good looking dog. We went around the neighborhood and someone driving down the street pulled over and asked us if we were going to breed her. They wanted a puppy. So there you go Mom, everyone likes your dog.

The New (to us) car

Here is the car we bought when the van died. It's a 2001 Ford Focus. The saying "Found On Road Dead" concerns me a bit, considering our past history with cars. It appears to be in good shape, no major dents, the paint is pretty good (the paint in the minivan was so bad you could see the metal in spots) It has less than 70,000 miles on it. We are hoping this means that it won't break down. I know I sound like a worry wart but in the 2 years we had the van we probably spent $5000 trying to keep it running. That's more than this car cost before taxes and such. Anyway, wish us luck with this car, it needs to last a few years. Preferrably without spending thousands on fixing it.

New Haircut - self Portrait

To Michelle and Mom as promised, a pic of the new haircut. It's a turn-the-camera around and shoot type of pic. The ones Jeremy took really didn't turn out. Also, it's 98 degrees outside and I've been up since 3:00 AM as usual so yes, I look tired because, well, I am tired. I am very happy with the shorter hair. I don't think I've had it this short in quite a few years. It's much easier to take care of and considering how hot it's been I got it done at just the right time. Eventually we will wash the car that we just bought and I'll take a picture of that too. Eventually. So, Michelle, I'm waiting on you to get that flat-iron fixed so I can see what your hair looks like!

Easter

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Hope everyone enjoys the slideshow. We had a nice Easter. the kids had a lot of fun visiting with Jeremy's family, as they always do. Everyone was healthy and happy, no meltdowns. Oh yeah, my birthday was good too.

Visit from family

Ok, I've goofed up this posting but oh well. At Ted's reception JD didn't want to dance with the girls but he didn't want KC to dance with them either. It was kind of funny.

This is my aunt Nancy dancing with Becca at Ted's reception. It was really nice to see everyone, the kids were pretty good and we had fun. The kids especially liked the dancing. It was hard to get them to leave when it was time to go.


The day before Mom, Dad KC and Michelle went home, they came to hang out at my house a little bit. We played War because we thought it would be a short game. Boy were we wrong. We had fun though.

Michelle will have to tell me which of my nephews this is. I think it's Ben but I am probably wrong. We had birthday cake since my birthday is coming up. I thought it would be fun to give Ben and Owen some. They will be turning one next month, so we had a practice run. They loved it. They dumped it all over a towel, ate everything up and then started chewing on the plates. I love this cake-face.

Pics from Utah Trip

I know the trip happened three months ago but I've been busy. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the kids and family from the trip. The girls especially liked the snow. JD, not so much. It might have had something to do with his gloves falling off.


JD had fun at first but we couldn't find any gloves that fit him. He played in the snow until his hands were numb and then he told us they were hot. Poor little guy. After that he wouldn't touch the snow.
I always like going to Temple Square to see the lights. The lights that they put on the Oakland Temple are pretty, but it's just not the same.


Is it bad that I love this picture because Becca's getting a head full of snow and loving it? Here Sariah is trying to give her a hard time and Becca is just loving it. Nothing gets her down.

We have no less than three different pictures of Becca eating snow. It's probably a good thing that Grandma doesn't have a dog. Yuck.

Anyway, there are more pictures but it's getting late and I need to get some sleep.